


Anchored

by Dragontrill



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-08-04
Packaged: 2018-02-11 18:52:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2079270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragontrill/pseuds/Dragontrill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky can't sleep, to the point where his exhaustion is affecting his mind. Nothing feels real, awake or asleep, and if he can't find something to anchor him to reality, he's going to lose himself all over again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anchored

For the fifteenth day in a row, Bucky woke with his breath locked on a scream in his throat and his body so tense that he felt he was going to snap in half. 

He couldn't even remember the nightmare this time, not that he wanted to. The feeling of disassociation was bad enough, the sensation of not being present in his body, of everything around him being nothing more than a delusion of a mind that had been fried and damaged too many times to ever be whole again. 

It was the middle of the night, less than two hours since Steve finally convinced him to go to bed and try to sleep. He had to sleep, Steve said. It was the only way his mind was going to be able to heal. Bucky knew that, but the only reason he'd gone was because Steve had been on the edge of exhaustion himself. Bucky's memories were spotty at the best of times, but he understood that Steve wasn't going to go to his own bed until Bucky at least tried to rest. 

Bucky groaned and laid his metal arm over his eyes. He couldn't keep doing this. Couldn't keep pretending he was going to get better and wasn't actually a walking zombie devouring his own brain from the inside. Despite all of Steve's best efforts, he knew he was drifting, floating outside of himself, and every time he slept, he grew afraid he'd float far enough away that he wouldn't be able to find his way back. Then only the Winter Soldier would remain. Bucky didn't want that, but there just wasn't anything to anchor him to the here and now, nothing real enough to cut through the delusions and the doubt. Not even Steve was real enough to do it, not when Bucky looked at him and remembered a short, scrawny guy at the same time he saw Captain America.

His body ached for sleep, but Buck pushed himself out of bed. There was no point to it. He crept assassin-quiet out of his room and to the stairs, easing the door open as silently as he could. He didn't want to wake Steve and if he stayed on the floor they shared, he would. He'd get coffee up on the common floor, and hope that everyone else was asleep, or at least kept to their own areas.

He stepped out of the elevator and put a hand out to the wall at his weary stumble. He hadn't slept since HYDRA fell, didn't know how to sleep anymore, actually. He only knew how to sleep in the ice, where there were no dreams. No one here would even countenance the idea of putting him in cryo-sleep though, as if it were some sort of cruelty and not a salvation he didn't think he'd ever have again. Bucky would almost have been willing to go back to HYDRA for the cryo-sleep, if it weren't for the fact that he knew they would eventually wake him.

The communal floor was a largely open space, with floor to ceiling windows all around to show off the lights of the city. In this portion, it was mostly comfortable couches and an entertainment system that was bigger than the theatres Bucky remembered. Elsewhere on the floor was a library, a gym designed for superheroes, eating areas, and more. It had every kind of distraction a man could want.

The floor in front of him swayed, distorting in his vision as if he were viewing it from underwater. Bucky shook his head and the view solidified again, even as it blurred around the edges. Even awake, the world didn't feel real anymore, not that he expected it to. He knew the distance of his dreams was going to follow him out into the waking world. He turned and made his way to the massive, industrial kitchen that was the Avengers' main gathering place, not that he expected to see anyone there now.

He did anyway. Bucky stopped in the doorway, staring gape-mouthed at the man standing in front of the open fridge. He was massive, with enough height and muscle to make Steve look small. He had some sort of Shakespearean armour on and a red cape, but he didn't look stupid and Bucky realized he was staring when the man turned away from the refrigerator and looked at him.

Bucky immediately dropped into a ready crouch, honestly not sure he could take this guy but determined that if he had to, he'd fight.

The man regarded him and then closed the fridge door. "If you wish to fight me, I will not dishonour you by refusing, but it is not necessary. I am Thor Odinson, an Avenger. I believe that you are James the Bucky Barnes, shield brother to Captain Rogers?"

"He is," Jarvis said overhead while Bucky just stared at him. He sort of remembered being told there was an Avenger he hadn't met, but it was part of all of the things in his head that were fuzzy, distant and hard to focus on.

"I... haven't seen you before," he said and his voice sounded confused.

Thor didn't comment on his tone as he crossed to the table carrying a plate of fried chicken. "I have just returned this night. I did not wish to wake anyone with my arrival. Would you like to share food with me?"

Bucky looked at the plate and his stomach rolled. After seventy years of being fed intravenously, Bruce essentially had him on a diet of baby food. "Uh, no." 

Thor nodded and took a seat, gesturing for Bucky to do the same. Slowly, he sat and Thor started to eat. Bucky stared at his hands. He didn't want company, but Thor seemed to understand he wasn't interested in speaking and didn't say anything about how tired Bucky looked, which was a relief. The room was swimming enough as it was and nothing felt real. It was definitely as bad now as when he was asleep. With nothing to hold onto, Bucky didn't know how long it would be before he dissolved completely and was just gone.

Across from him, Thor contentedly ate his chicken, sitting in his armour as if he belonged in this kitchen, surrounded by all the industrial metal and concrete. The red of his cape was a blast of colour against the neutral tones and Bucky felt his disassociation grow even more. It looked like there was two Thors across from him, a hundred, with a thousand heads, sitting at a thousand tables in a thousand kitchens, all of them swirling into a whirlpool that was going to suck Bucky in and destroy him. He might have given a tiny whimper.

Thor looked at him. "Tell me what distresses you?" he boomed in a million voices, all spoken with the tone of a king.

Bucky obeyed without even even thinking about it. "Everything. Nothing's real. Nothing's solid. I can't... I can't exist. There's nothing to hold me down. I'm drifting apart."

He couldn't see Thor's expression, was too fragmented to have understood it even if he had. The man shifted in his chair, reaching down to his belt, and unhooked something.

"Focus on this," he said and placed a weapon between them on the table. 

Bucky stared at it. It was a hammer, the head broad and rectangular, made of some sort of grey stone, with a short handle wrapped in soft brown leather, a loop to go around the wrist at the end. 

Where everything in Bucky's universe was swirling, folding in on itself and distorting to nightmare, that hammer was solid, unchanging, real. Shaking, Bucky stood and leaned across the table towards it, his hand trembling as he laid it against rough stone. It was dense, denser than stars, heavier than moons, a reality that was so undeniably there that it didn't shift the way everything else did and kept Bucky's hand solid where he touched it.

With a moan, Bucky tried to pull the hammer to him. It didn't move, solidifying its reality even more, so Bucky climbed up onto the table in order to wrap himself around it, and let its sheer power anchor him as well.

###

The minute Steve woke, he went to check on Bucky. He hadn't woken him, so Steve really hoped his friend had actually got some sleep for once. He had to. According to Bruce, his sleep deprivation was becoming dangerous. Without sleep, his mind wouldn't heal and he couldn't just be sedated. The serum in him was almost as effective as that in Steve. They'd have to dope him into a coma to be able to put him out at all and that wouldn't help his mind at all. He needed natural sleep, or he'd end up going insane, with no way back. 

That thought was enough to give Steve nightmares, but he was hopeful until he eased Bucky's door open and saw his bed was empty.

"Jarvis, where's Bucky?"

"Sergeant Barnes is in the kitchen on the common floor, Sir."

Steve sighed and headed upstairs, hoping that Bucky got some sleep and wasn't just drinking coffee again. He just didn't know what to do. It felt like he was losing his friend all over again.

He walked out of the elevator was was greeted by the rest of the Avengers, including Thor, sitting in the main living area with coffee and a box of donuts. He opened his mouth to ask why they weren't sitting in the kitchen like usual and was immediately shushed by all of them.

"What?" he whispered.

Natasha pointed towards the kitchen. "In there. Be quiet. You don't want to wake him."

She had a smile on her face that made Steve wonder if she was joking, but he went towards the kitchen anyway, his feet silent on the hardwood floor, and stopped in the doorway.

Bucky was lying on his side on top of the breakfast table, fast asleep. Someone had placed a pillow under his head and a blanket over him and he had his arms wrapped around Thor's hammer.

Steve looked back into the living area. "What?" he managed.

Thor looked up and smiled. "My Mjolnir gives him comfort. I could not deny such to a fellow warrior."

Steve stared at Thor. Bucky was sleeping with a hammer. He looked in at Bucky. He was sleeping with a hammer. Steve didn't care if he was sleeping with a rabid badger. He looked back at Thor and swallowed. "Can you... will you..."

Thor nodded. "Mjolnir has always won her battles. I shall remain until she wins this one too." 

Weak in the knees with gratitude, Steve went over to shake his hand in thanks.

###

In the kitchen, Bucky slept, unaware of anything except the solid, undeniable weight of the hammer he held, and in his dreams, it sang a song of healing.


End file.
